Liberalizing gambling laws could help China survive the global economic downturn, sports officials said at the annual meeting of China’s parliament last week. Gambling was banned in mainland China after the Communist takeover in 1949, the exceptions being two state lotteries – one of them run by the sports ministry to fund the building of facilities.

When the Sands Macao opened in 2004, Asia’s first Las Vegas-style casino prompted an extraordinary boom for Macau and casino owner Las Vegas Sands (LVS). Thereafter, Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong reversed decades of ruling party opposition to approve two casino resorts, hoping to emulate Macau’s and LVS‘s success. Macau and LVS are now both reeling as the world’s economies take a turn for the worse, and some analysts forecast Singapore’s integrated resorts (IRs)…

Gala Coral is streamlining its operations ahead of the likely impact of the economic downturn on casino, bingo and betting revenues, and has told staff that up to 200 jobs may be affected. Its five divisions will be pared back to three, with bingo and casino merging and Coral betting shops being bracketed with its Eurobet equivalents in Italy. Dominic Harrison, who replaced Neil Goulden as chief executive in September, said that while trading was satisfactory…

Casino companies’ earnings are plummeting by double digits. Debt costs are rising and customers are spending less. In the financial world, in this economy, those are the trend lines of doom. Indeed, a few smaller operators are already close to bankruptcy. But could giants like MGM Mirage and Harrah’s Entertainment be next? The breathtaking series of Wall Street failures and Washington bailouts of recent months suggests anything is possible – even spectacular failures in Las Vegas.